Sermon Central
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God Is In Control Series
Contributed by Steve Lawson on Nov 30, 2004 (message contributor)
Summary: God’s soveriegnty in a free will world
God is in Control
Let the godly sing with joy to the LORD, for it is fitting to praise him.
2 Praise the LORD with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-stringed harp.
3 Sing new songs of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp and sing with joy.
4 For the word of the LORD holds true, and everything he does is worthy of our trust.
5 He loves whatever is just and good, and his unfailing love fills the earth.
6 The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created.
He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.
7 He gave the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.
8 Let everyone in the world fear the LORD, and let everyone stand in awe of him.
9 For when he spoke, the world began! It appeared at his command.
10 The LORD shatters the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes.
11 But the LORD’s plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken.
12 What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD, whose people he has chosen for his own.
13 The LORD looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race.
14 From his throne he observes all who live on the earth.
15 He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do.
16 The best-equipped army cannot save a king, nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.
17 Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory— for all its strength, it cannot save you.
18 But the LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love.
19 He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine.
20 We depend on the LORD alone to save us. Only he can help us, protecting us like a shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we are trusting in his holy name.
22 Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone.
The Testimony of God’s Power
The Testimony of Physics
Our universe is precisely ordered to support out life here on earth. Everything about the cosmos is finely tuned. For example:
The energy density of space
Something I have never thought of before is the energy density of empty space. Astronomers have found that the energy density of empty space must be precisely balanced to support the solar system as we know it. In fact the fine tuning necessary to keep the energy density of empty space at a constant so that we can live and breathe is represented by one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be ten followed by 53 zeros. If the energy density of space was off by even that miniscule of an amount, life would cease to exist as we know it.
This is only one example of the multitude of individual physical and cosmological factors that all must work together to sustain life on earth. In fact the precision with which these factors must work together is one part in ten billion multiplied by itself one hundred and twenty three times. Experts say that you can’t even write that number down, since it would require more zeros than the number of elementary particles in the entire universe!
And it’s not just that God did the math. He is not just a supernatural genius. He made it look easy. The Psalms say that breathed and the stars were created. Do you get that? Something so precise that we cannot even calculate it was as easy as breathing to Him. In another Psalm, it says that He knows each star by name.
David said “The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born.” Another Psalm says that God laughs with joy every time the sun travels across the sky. Please don’t get a picture of God being so powerful that He worked out the complexity of the universe. It was a game to Him! Something so precise that we can’t even write a number to describe it was easy for Him. It was like child’s play.
That’s how awesome God is.
The Apostle Paul wrote: “From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature.”
The Testimony of Terra
Gravity
The earth’s gravity is so finely tuned by a variety of factors that if one of those factors changed even a fraction of an amount, then we would either be instantaneously crushed or fly off into space. This tuning is so fine that it can be represented by a factor of one part in ten thousand billion billion billion. That’s ten with 30 zeros after it.
